Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Lavender Cowboy - A Song History

In an article in Time Magazine, March 25, 1940, NBC revealed
that 147 songs were on their list of "blue recordings," with
"blue" meaning they were blacklisted from radio. This may have been
prompted by ASCAP's concern about what they perceived as a wave of "salacious and suggestive songs." It seems
difficult to believe these days that the country song "Lavender
Cowboy" would be on that list. Written as a poem in 1923 by Harold Hersey,
it was set to music and recorded in 1927 by Ewen Hall. Country legend Vernon Dalhart recorded a version that stuck
strictly to the words of the original poem. But it didn't take long for the
lyrics to gradually change, and to more explicitly portray the cowboy as
homosexual, or at least (in 1937) as a "cream-puff," as done by Bob
Skyles and His Skyrockets.

Burl Ives recorded a quite tame rendition
in 1950, one without a chorus, the version most people know and most recorded by others. But then in
the UK Paddy Roberts turned things darker and our hero does not survive the
song, after they quite nonchalantly shot him.

The song got one more change, and
quite a drastic one in 1980, by the Newfoundland group, Sons of Erin. This time
the cowboy survives, and their approach is quite campy and stereotypically gay.
They even performed it on their TV show.